The girl from Botany Bay Mary Bryant
by Ezza-1989
Summary: Mary Bryant thinks back on her life, full of joy, love, hardship and tragedy. based on the mini series and books, please R and R!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Mary Bryant, Or any other characters accoicated with the mini series, If I did, I would be rich J

Writers note: This is based on the Mini series and books, so some things may be changed to be more historically accurate as things go on. It is not entirely based on the amazing mini series. Also, For those of you who don't know the story, this is based on the true events that happend toMary Bryant. Shewas a convict, who with seven others, escaped from the colony, did the impossible and sailed all the way to Timor. She was true legend.

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Many years had passed, and Mary Bryant was no longer "Mary Bryant." Nor was she remembered as "the girl from botany bay," now she was just another lady, her old life gone, now she had a new husband and children, and was back in the place where it had all begun.

Even now though, she still thought of herself as Mary Bryant, because a part of her belonged to Will, and always would. it was the part that was missing from her life.

How many times had she recalled those years? Go over and over them, wondering, thinking, the torture of remembering was unbearable and yet she could not stop herself.

She had been so young, only 17 when it had happened. She should have listened to her mother, she should have listened to her father, but she didn't. She was crazy, wild, like an animal, she hadn't eaten in so long, that she had forgotten the taste of food. She had watched those around her starve, men, women and children, and fear had swept through her. She wouldn't starve! She wouldn't! and like a wild animal she ran.

She ran, the hunger driving her on and on, she wasn't thinking clearly or logically, because that is not what hunger drives you to, no, it sends you crazy, leaving no room for logic-she had seen it. Seen people in the village eat poisonous plants, driven by the isane desire to eat _something_.

And now hunger was driving her towards what must have been destiny.

She lay on the ground, waiting, and when a rich woman had come o investigate, she had stolen her bread and bonnet. She had fled, fled with the food, eating as she ran-it was to be the last free meal she had ever had.

Prison was worse than Mary could have imagined. Not only was she expected to starve here, in the smelly, disease ridden overcrowded cells, but all of it was to await a death sentence.

But Mary was determined to stay alive, she was not one to give up, and so she learnt that she must let go of her pride and dignity if it was life that she wanted, and like so many girls before her, desperate and starving, she gave a prison guard her innocence in exchange for food.

But then, his Majesty had been so kind to spare Mary's life, giveing her the choice tobe part of anew settlement in botany bay, Mary had no idea what that meant, but took the chance. And so it happened, that Mary who had never been five miles outside her village was to travel to the other side of the world.


	2. To Botany bay

To Botany Bay

Prison was a dangerous place for young women, and so was a ship with more than 100 convicts. Now Mary could not escape the men, with there sneering grins and unclean remarks, some of them villains who deserved to be feared, but many who where good men, stealing only to feed there family. A family that would now starve.

But there was worse than men with unclean thoughts and temptations-caged like animals, packed and crowded, Mary and the others were forced to live among rats and lice, in the darkness of the ship, where they could only wish for sunlight.

Mary could remember every awful detail of that ship, even so many years later. She could remember the smell of the sea, of vomit and waste, she could remember the gloomy faces of those around her, the way they cried and wailed, the sound of the rats at night, the way her clothes had itched with the lice….

But moist awful, she remembered the feeling of realising that she was with another-the prison guard would never know that he had a child, nor the fate of it, and he probably wouldn't have cared if he had heard. He wouldn't wonder how 17 year old Mary would raise a child, along in the conditions she was being subjected too, he gotten all that he had wanted….

Mary could still remember the friendships she had forged…. Elizabeth had looked out for her, taken her in, though Mary would never know why, she could remember clear as day when Elizabeth had asked how long she'd been with child.

"How did you know?" she had asked, amazed. "Had two me self, haven't I?" she had replied, "Who was it then?" "The prison guard." Mary had admitted, with bitter hatred, it was on that night she had promised herself her child would not live like this, like some animal, caged away from sunlight, she had sworn it.

That had been the night Will had saved her.

Will. She had been so frightened at first, as he did not hide the fact that he wanted her, she could see it in his eyes, the way he looked at her, and she could even hear it in his voice when he talked to her. And yet he did not corner her and rape her like she had seen other men do, but joked and made witty comments.

He seemed laid back, happy, a trouble maker maybe, when it came to jokes, but nothing more than smart comments or quick angry passed between them; he seemed to want to look out for her.

She had been frightened, and ignored him most of the time, trying to avoid him, and yet she could not deny the feeling that suddenly exploded inside of her at the sight of him, she was too young to realise then that for some strange reason, she loved him.

And then there was Ralph Clarke.

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Sorry It's so short, I plan to try and make it a bit longer soon 


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